‘And so, my love, you’re husband and father and mother and brother to me now. You’re all I have in this world, other than my son that’s soon to be fatherless. Don’t go back today, I’m begging you. Stay at home.’
Soldiers returning to the front know these speeches well. They can say them by heart. And Hector was equally emotional in his answer. He told her he knew the day would come when she’d be dragged off into slavery, the wife of some soldier prince, or as his concubine, to toil at the loom for another woman and fetch water from the wells in far-off Argos, to end her days as a downtrodden mumbling old drudge with no will of her own and nothing left to live for. And he hoped he’d be dead in earth long before it happened.
‘That’s all I hope for now, dearest wife. I hope they’ve thrown the dirt over my head long before that day. I hope they’ve piled it deep enough over my corpse so that even in death I don’t hear your screams as they murder our son and haul you out of your home. I hope I’m deep enough in Hades not to hear any of that.’
A good speech, yes?
In fact, he told her not to be a snivelling bitch. She’d undermine morale with her woman’s wailing. And interfere with his aim. Soldiers returning to the front don’t give way. They can’t give way. If they did, they wouldn’t go back. But everything was there in Penelope’s rendering, all that ought to be there, crafted from the heart: Andromache’s tears, Hector’s breast-beating, the fall of Thebe-under-Plakos, the mountain nymphs, the elm trees, the dead parents, the father’s tomb, the slaughtered siblings, the snow-white sheep, the shambling cattle – and the arrow of Artemis, shown for a second time in the web, repeating the pathos, heading for the heart of the already heartbroken mother, tipped with mercy, fraught with her death.
Hector took his son briefly in his arms. The infant was terrified by the hard armour, the helmet, the high nodding plume, and he bawled. The bloodied father stank of dust and death. He kissed him roughly and handed him back to the scented breast of his mother. Then he collected his brother and went back to the war. As soldiers do.
NINETEEN
Imagine you’re an old water-rat, your arms and arse aching after hours of ploughing the brine with your polished pine. Hours have turned into days, weeks. The oar-blade has rubbed fuck out of your fingers, blistered your palms. You’re chinstrapped, sick of it, can’t hack it a fraction longer.
Then a sudden breeze gets up . . . Sweet!
That’s how the blackheads must have felt when Hector appeared with Paris at his side, both of them good to go and armed to the teeth. A loud cheer greeted the bastards. And they went straight into the kill-zone.
Paris was first. Menesthius bought it with a single throw of the Trojan’s javelin and fell back in the chariot with no time even for a grunt. Goodnight, Menesthius. The reins slipped from his fingers and the horses went on the loose in the thick of the fighting.
Hector downed Eioneus, also with a single throw. The blade went into the neck just under the brain-bucket and he crashed sideways out of the chariot. Some brave cunt tried to help the horses, gone wild among the missiles, and he took an arrow in the throat and another in the back.
Iphinous was on my right, shouting fuck knows what. He got one in the shoulder from Glaucus. I yelled out to him to hold on – it wasn’t lethal – but he lost control of the horses and tumbled in the dust, screaming. It must have gone deeper than I’d thought. He was still fumbling with the long shaft when Glaucus ran up and lopped his head off, right under the chin, a neat job. The blackheads were on a roll.
Then fuck knows why, but priestly fucking Helenus put an end to it and gave us a breather. He went to Hector with a plan, a challenge. A single-combat duel, Hector against any comer. He said it would please the gods. The gods! When you’re already on the offensive and knocking fuck out of the enemy? Well, that was his area of expertise, and any cunt who knows the mind of the gods, well, you don’t want to ruffle him, one of the god squad, no, you’d better fucking listen. And we Greeks were the last to be putting up any objections. So Hector signalled for a cessation of hostilities and both sides sat down and were glad to.
The rules were simple: the winner to strip the loser of his armour but to release his body for a decent burial.
‘And I’m fucking sure,’ gloated Hector, ‘that I’ll be the one sending you back over a piece of dead Greek meat. But don’t worry, the corpse won’t be the loser either, not altogether. You can build your dead man a mound so fucking huge . . .’
Here he ran out of words.
A mound so high, so imposing under the clouds, the slow sunsets, that some seaman of the future, sailing the Hellespont, will easily descry it, looming up across the wine-dark sea, like a fist thrust up at Olympus, and he will tell his crew, ‘See, brave lads, there is the monument of so-and-so, struck down in a duel by Hector in the ninth year of war in Troy. He must have died gloriously, don’t you think? A beautiful death.’
A beautiful fucking death.
‘The only thing left to decide now,’ said Hector, ‘is, who’s the lucky fucker? Which of you Greeks wants to go for it, the big black mound? And the big fucking sleep?’
Silence in the ranks. Not a spear clinked, not a single piece of armour rattled. Every cunt sat tight and shat himself, terrified of being singled out. Volunteer and die. Sit still and shit again. Operation certain death. Who the fuck could blame them?
Menelaus could.
‘You fucking NUBs! You’re like a pile of frozen turds on a frosty fucking morning! Call yourselves men? Your bed-bitches have got more spunk in them. They sucked every last drop out of you last night and you’ve got fuck-all left for the fight. Well you can sit there and jerk off, every one of you – I’ll go out and fight the motherfucker myself!’
And that would have been goodnight Menelaus if it had been serious, and if his brother and all his cronies hadn’t jumped up to stop him, as the little shit knew perfectly well they were expected to do, and would. The gutless turd was only putting on a show.
‘You’re a brave man, brother,’ said Agamemnon, affecting to go along with the histrionics, ‘but you’re no match for Hector. He’d chew you up and spit you out in seconds. There’d be fuck-all left of you to bury. Better leave this to a more equal fighter, somebody better matched – somebody like myself, for example, since that deserter rat Achilles is safe in his funk-hole and there are no men left in the field. It looks like it’s down to me. It’s no job for a leader, but if no other bugger has got the balls . . .’
Groans from the men, who could see precisely what the prick was up to, playing the same game as his arsehole of a brother. And to avoid further embarrassment Nestor stood up.
‘Leaders, please, sit down. And listen to me, everyone. All of Greece would weep to hear of this. Ye gods, if only I had my youth again, instead of all these useless years on my back, I’d have been out there myself by now, long ago. I remember when the Arcadian spearmen fought the Pylian levies beneath the walls of Pheia. It was at the river Celadon, by the swift streams of Iardanus . . .’
The men relaxed their stiff limbs and lay at ease. They knew we were in for one of Nestor’s long recalls, a mixture of diplomacy and nostalgia.
‘It was exactly the same situation – we were challenged by their best fighter, a man called Ereuthalion, and he was some sight in his armour, let me tell you. That armour had once belonged to King Areithous. Everybody called him the Mad Maceman because he never fought from any distance at all, with a bow or even a spear. He always used a mace instead. He’d swing it about with amazing strength and skill – he could break whole ranks with it, and front lines just crumbled in front of him. Huge man, handsome too. Women went wet between the legs as soon as they saw him, so they said. He was some man.
‘And when he finally met his end it wasn’t because he was bettered in the field, not him. Lycurgus killed him by trickery – lured him into a narrow pass, where he was not only completely cornered but couldn’t do his thing with his mace, and Lycurgus struck him rig
ht through the belly and back with his spear, easy as target practice, and stripped him of his armour. Whoever wore that armour looked like the war-god and nobody was ever beaten in it. He was Ares’ man.
‘Then Lycurgus grew too old to fight, as happens to the best of us, and he passed the armour on to Ereuthalion, his squire, another gigantic man, and it was the Maceman’s armour he was wearing when he challenged us that day. The whole army was scared, each man too intimidated to take him on. But I was a spirited lad in those days. I had youth on my side and cupfuls of confidence. So I stepped out and stood up to him, and I killed him.
‘It wasn’t easy – don’t misunderstand me. But if you tell yourself you can do a thing, that’s half the battle. The funny thing was, after I’d killed him, I don’t mind telling you, I was more scared of him dead than alive, he cut such a figure even sprawled out in the dust, all his length and breadth. He looked bigger lying down than standing up. A colossus. I recall asking myself, ye gods, did I really take on this titan, and kill him too? I must have been mad. But even big men must fall one day. They all have their day. And when they do, they hit the ground with a harder crash. That’s how it will be with Hector too – who, by the way, is nothing like the size of the man I killed that day, big as he is. Hector will fall in his turn – to the better man. The only question is, which of you is the better man?’
Old Nestor had done it again, the cunning old cunt. He may have been the veteran stuck in his own heroic past, but his piece got nine men up on their hind legs, myself included. I thought I’d better show face, though I knew I’d be no match for Hector in a straight fight. I hoped Nestor would just pick somebody, but he said lots would have to be drawn. It was a one-in-nine chance, and it fell to Ajax. I’d survived another day.
Hector looked a bit pissed off when he saw who his opponent was going to be – the big ugly fat fucker himself. You had to admit he looked formidable behind his shield. It had been made from the hides of seven ferocious bulls. The eighth layer was bronze, and man and shield together stood like some tower that could never be taken. Fucking impenetrable. But Hector came out to meet him, and the two approached one another without flinching, not a blink.
They went through their war of words. Ready to die, cunt-head? Your job, arsehole! And after honour had been satisfied in the time-honoured way, they dropped the shit and engaged.
Hector threw first, and his cast pierced six layers, no less – Ajax displayed the damage later – but not the seventh. And there was still the bronze.
Then Ajax took his turn, and you could hear the spear go all the way through. He was a formidable thrower. But Hector swerved expertly and averted certain death. They each threw again after that, and the pattern repeated itself, non-penetration and missing the target – like a bad night in the brothels, quipped Menelaus, enjoying the spectacle. The cunt knew he was safe.
Insults, spears, and now the rocks. Hector picked up a big black jagged bastard and it bounced off the boss with a clang that could have been heard halfway across the Hellespont. Bull’s-eye. The blackheads cheered. Ajax staggered back two lengths and tottered, but he wasn’t going down. He flung down his shield, picked up a rock twice the size of Hector’s, and charged him with it. Hector turned to run for it – then stopped, turned again and braced himself. So did both armies. When Ajax threw, you knew about it. There was a motherfucking crash.
Everybody rose. The shield was already weakened from Ajax’s two spear-hits. Now it crumpled, jamming Hector under it as he went down, his arms and legs waving like some fucking beetle. Ajax charged up on him, ready to crush him. Hector was dead.
But the bastard was only briefly on his back. He rolled over, wriggled free of the shield and was on his feet in a flash, his sword drawn. Ajax was no dunce with the sword, but everybody knew Hector was ten times faster and he had a lot more skill. Now Ajax was fucked.
He was saved by Agamemnon, who yelled to the heralds for intervention. The light was failing and it was no great idea to continue the contest in the dark. Each man had acquitted himself well in the field. Enough was enough. Call it equal.
Boos from the blackheads. It was a cop-out, and they knew it. But the two combatants exchanged gifts of honour, Agamemnon killed a bull in recognition of Ajax’s good stand, and we agreed to a cessation of hostilities for the day. Total relief all round, both sides. Nestor proposed a truce for the recovery of bodies and the building of a funeral pyre, with more time allowed for the erection of a barrow over it. The blackheads agreed.
What they didn’t know was that Nestor’s plan included using the mound as a base for building high walls with gates to protect the ships. A deep trench lined with stakes parallel to the walls would obstruct any attack.
But Priam used the opportunity to apologise for the Trojan perjury in breaking the first truce and surprised everybody by now offering a surrender of all the Spartan property. Paris even said he’d offer some of his own goods if it brought about the end of the war, but that he’d never surrender Helen. Agamemnon replied that Helen was the whole fucking point of the war, lying through his arse as usual.
So the war would continue. But it would be interrupted for as long as it took to find and bury our recent dead. An honourable business and one that shouldn’t be rushed. The dead deserve decency, dignity, respect – and time. So we knew we’d get our walls and ditch under way while the mourning ceremonies were properly conducted and no one was looking.
We met at dawn, not to kill each other but to collect the killed and save what we could from the dogs and vultures. No easy task to distinguish friend from foe, even after we washed away the clotted blood and made out the facial features, if any were left to identify. Priam had forbidden outward mourning – no loud cries or wails, no cursing or abuse, and we tried to observe the same decorum as we milled about among one another, Greeks and Trojans rubbing shoulders in a solemn silence, stifling the curses, though the hot scalding tears dropped quietly on many a dead face.
Some ships happened to put in from Lemnos with a consignment of wine, one thousand gallons, a gift from Jason’s son Euneus to the Atreidae. The rest of the cargo was traded for bronze, iron, hides, live beasts, women, slaves. That night we drank deep.
We ate well too, dining on the bull, and on slaughtered oxen that knew nothing of war but died anyway, as all living creatures must die, men or beasts. No distance away we could hear the enemy also wining and dining themselves in great style, drinking to their glorious dead. And for that space of time they sounded not like enemies at all but just like men, like us, men mourning their friends and kin, lamenting the curse of war, bloody war, the scourge of humankind. But our slaves were already building the fortifications on the bones of the dead, and there was ominous thunder all night long, disguising their labours, and telling the tremblers, those who listened to thunder and pondered its meaning, that the long list of the dead was far from complete, and that there were many more casualties yet to come in this long and bitter conflict.
TWENTY
Nestor nearly bought it after the truce. We’d only just got back into action when I spotted his third horse in difficulty. The worst kind. An arrow had struck the beast in the brain, and I could see it sticking out just at the place where the mane starts growing – a lethal spot for a steed. But it hadn’t killed him outright, and he was rearing about in his death throes, throwing his companions into a complete balls-up. Nestor was still slashing at the reins when Hector came charging up at him, and the old bugger’s life was suddenly in the scales.
I heard Diomedes yelling to Nestor to get his shield up, which he did, just as Hector’s spear thudded into it. A breath between the old man and the pyre.
Diomedes shouted again. ‘Leave the fucking horses! Get in here!’
Nestor didn’t wait for the order to be repeated. He clambered up into the chariot beside Diomedes and the offensive swung suddenly against Hector. Diomedes hurled, Hector did his swerve, and the missile missed but killed the charioteer, Eniopeus, hitting h
im in the nipple and sinking deep into the chest. He let go of the reins with a shriek and keeled over out of the chariot, on a straight course to Hades.
‘Fuck!’
Hector’s grief was brief. He left Eniopeus dying in the dust and galloped off to find another driver, Archeptolemus, and got him in fast behind the team.
The thunder that had rumbled during the night erupted now into a sudden motherfucker of a storm, and a lightning bolt scorched the earth right in front of Diomedes’ pair. Hector whooped.
‘Thank you, god! Who says Zeus isn’t a fucking Trojan?’
The horses reared and backed and nearly tumbled the two out of the chariot. Nestor dropped the reins but grabbed at them again, wheeled about and drove back to the ships, full gallop, with Diomedes screaming in his ear all the time to stop and turn around and face Hector. No fucking way. I joined them PDQ with the whole blackhead army and a hailstorm of spears at our backs. We were lucky to escape unscathed.
Hector’s taunts harried us all the way, the bastard. ‘Well run, pussies! You too, Odysseus! Home safely now, boys, back to your funk-holes, you splitters!’
Diomedes turned in the chariot, but it was trundling like fuck, almost airborne, and there was no way he could aim a spear at his pursuer.
Hector jeered. ‘And you – you fuck, you were the one who was going to be first to scale our walls and rape our women! I’ll see you in hell before then!’
Diomedes’ face was black under this harangue. That bastard really knew how to wind him up. But when I glanced back, I could see Hector’s grinning white teeth and the mad whites of the eyes underneath the helmet, and I knew he’d shortly be flinging more than insults. I shouted to Diomedes to protect himself, just as he was screaming at Nestor to stop and turn and let Hector have it.
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